I want to write down, as far as possible, my remorse and my sorrow, for the sake of Tzu-chun and for myself.
How quiet and empty it is in this dingy room, secluded in a forgotten corner of the Provincial Guild! And how quickly time flies! It is now more than a year since I fell in love with Tzu-chun and through that love escaped this quiet and emptiness. How ironic that this same room should be the only one available when I came back here. Everything is as it used to be—the same broken window looking out on the same hollow locust tree and ancient wisteria, the same square table in front of the window, the same cracked wall, and by it the same bed. It is the same as before Tzu-chun and I lived together, it is as if the past year had been entirely eradicated, as if it had never existed, as if I had never moved out of this dingy room and established a tiny home full of hope in Chi-chao Hutung.
Not only this, but the quiet and emptiness a year ago were not quite the same as they are now, for they were then tempered with expectation, the expectation that Tzu-chun would soon arrive. After a long, impatient wait, how I used to come suddenly to life as soon as I heard the crisp sound of her high-heeled shoes upon the brick walk! Then I would see her dimpled, pale, round face, her thin arms, her striped cotton blouse and her black skirt.[1] She would bring in some
- ↑ The regulation dress of girl students during the first ten or fifteen years of the republic.
